WHO'S GOING TO TAKE THE WEIGHT?

These last several days have been straight-up crazy. Bursting pipes. Chilly cribs. Rolling black outs that rest but refuse to roll. Folk trying to navigate their way to warming centers-- despite the absence of reliable public transportation and the continued presence of icy and treacherous streets. People cranking up their rides to grab some heat and charge up their electronics. Folk freezing to death. Food and meds going bad and, not surprisingly, pundits talking out the side of their necks about how this mess supposedly results from the machinations of liberal wizards that have managed to dupe some of the citizenry into buying that fool's gold known as "green energy."

Nothing could be further from the truth. What we're witnessing is what happens when public policy and political elites genuflect at the altar of free market capitalism. What we're witnessing is what happens when decision-makers slough off public responsibilities on the charitable and faith communities. What we're witnessing is what happens when elected officials--and their supporters-- push and enact policies grounded in the conviction that federal government is a perennial threat to "economic freedom" and that genuine "freedom fighters" must push back against all federal efforts to regulate business. What we see is what you get when you spend your effort pushing the idea that the best way to provide for basic human needs is to "incentivize" the private sector to get the job done. This is what happens when you have climate change deniers running the show. This is what happens when you take a fundamental public duty-- to construct and maintain a public infrastructure capable of keeping your folk healthy and safe-- and turn it over to a private, "nonprofit" entity that's unaccountable to the public whose needs it's supposed to serve. This is what is what you get when states and localities have next to nothing in the way of substantive disaster preparedness plans.

And just who do you think is going to get disproportionately slammed by this fiasco? Just who do you think is going to emerge particularly scarred from the state's love affair with the supposed magic of markets? Who's going to take the weight?

SAME OLD STORY

You know, who's going to disproportionately catch the weight? The ones with the least ability to shoulder the burden. The ones without the coins to grab an overpriced hotel room. The ones with poorly insulated homes. The ones out here in these streets. Trying to navigate their way toward a warming center amid an unreliable public transportation system, and through iced up streets and alleys. The ones who can't afford back-up generators to keep their stuff lit when the grid goes dark. The ones who can't even entertain the thought of raising up and fleeing to, say, Cancun. The ones gathering at the family member's crib that still has heat. In the middle of a pandemic. If they can even get there.

Who's going to catch the weight? First and foremost, poor folk. If history tells us anything, it tells us that that structural inequities virtually ensure that poor folk are lined up to get clobbered by disasters and pandemics. They always catch hell first and most. Whether it's a Katrina, or a virus wreaking havoc on the body economic, or an energy black out attributable to a deadly love affair with deregulation. It's the poorest that's most exposed. That's most at risk of catching the weight.

Just think, for a moment, about one thing that's bound to happen within the next few weeks: Outrageously high utility bills hitting those mailboxes. While a broad range of people can expect crazily high bills next month, it's poor folk who are really going to by poor. Researchers have found, for instance, that 25% of low- and moderate-income Texas residents spend at least 12.5% of that income on home energy costs. This is a significantly greater than the 4% that higher income households spend on energy. Any way you slice it, come next month, more and more low-income families will have to make the choice between paying that utility bill, paying rent, or putting some grub on the table. The fallout from this fiasco is far from over. Unable to pay their bill, some families--a disproportionate number of them poor-- may find themselves back in the dark. Again.

And you can bet that Black and Brown bodies will be disproportionately represented amongst the ranks of those who'll keep catching the weight. In Texas, Blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely as Whites to fall below the poverty level. Non-Whites, then, are especially likely to find it difficult to both flee on coming disasters and to recover from the wreckage that said disasters bring. Black and Brown bodies are the very bodies disproportionately vulnerable to the costs inevitably associated with the "market is god" ideology that frames so much of Texas public policy. Black and Brown bodies will pay first and pay longest.

Particularly galling is the fact that these are the very groups that have been pummeled by the pandemic over the last ten months. Blacks and Latinos residing in Texas have higher COVID mortality rates than their White counterparts. And now this stuff. Talk about not being able to catch a break! In lots of ways, the last ten months have been a relentless beat down for certain groups and communities. This power outage is yet another blow to communities and persons who have already been gut punched.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

So, what can be done? A lot. But right now, one of the most important things we can do is to lift, advocate, and fight for the needs of those persons and communities that are getting slammed by the power outage.

This entails providing financial support to those organizations seeking to bring basic needs to the suffering. We must support those organized efforts to provide water, food, and heat to those hemmed in by this mess. But we must also be clear about this: Voluntary and charitable efforts, while commendable, can never be a substitute for sound and humane social policies. Public officials must be called out and held accountable for this current tragedy. If we're concerned about the plight of the least of these, then we must lend our support not only to charitable efforts but to those organizations that seek to build something new, something better, something more beautiful than that which is. We must put our muscle--financial and physical-- behind organized efforts that seek to build and sustain linkages between movements for socio-economic and climate justice.

And then there's this: We must demand that the citizenry is freed from any obligation to pay the outrageously high utility bills headed to their mailboxes. No one should have to pay a bill that is way out of synch with what is normal for the month. Charges that can be clearly attributable to the current situation must be forgiven. No extended payment plans. Forgiven. Zeroed out.

Our folk don't need this. Not after all that they've gone through for the last ten months or so. Make the fat cats eat this one! Let them catch the weight.

Catch you on flip side,

Doc Greene